Movie #8 of 2017: Wonder Woman (2017) Wonder Woman is neither a perfect movie nor even a perfect superhero movie, but it’s such a refreshing change of pace from the typical male-heavy entries to that genre that it’s pretty easy to overlook the minor flaws and celebrate its accomplishments. And it is a good movie, …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
Book Review: Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin
Book #125 of 2017: Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin The best part about this collection of loosely-related stories is captured by the pun in its title, reflecting the overall conceit that the unique combination of boredom and frustration experienced by a person waiting at the airport can enable travel to a different astral …
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Book Review: Feed by Mira Grant
Book #124 of 2017: Feed by Mira Grant (Newsflesh #1) Once you set aside this book’s ludicrous premise – not the zombie uprising, but the idea that independent teen bloggers represent a trusted news source – it ends up being a lot of fun. The story is set several decades after the undead outbreak, and …
Book Review: Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
Book #123 of 2017: Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King (Bill Hodges Trilogy #1) This novel lost steam for me as it went along (especially once I realized that a promising new character was just Stephen King’s version of Lisbeth Salander), but for the most part King has delivered an exciting crime thriller about a retired …
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Book Review: The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Book #122 of 2017: The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Idiot — which might more fairly be called The Naïf — follows a wide-eyed innocent as he leaves his Swiss sanitarium for Russian high society and generally finds himself unprepared for its corruption and amorality. Some of these events are droll, but I felt there …
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Book Review: Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger
Book #121 of 2017: Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger (Finishing School #1) A lightweight little YA steampunk fantasy novel about a finishing school for teen girl spies. A good summer read, it was fun but not particularly deep. I believe it’s also in the same setting as some of author Gail Carriger’s other works, …
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TV Review: Arrow, season 5
TV #20 of 2017: Arrow, season 5 Arrow honestly had an amazing season this year. It’s kind of hard to believe after how weak the past two had been, especially when you consider that the main novelty this season was adding a new batch of lower-tier comics characters like Wild Dog for the Green Arrow …
TV Review: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, season 4
TV #19 of 2017: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, season 4 B99 is getting a little long in the tooth, but it’s still regularly delivering a funny character-driven story with a diverse cast and a definite focus on inclusive feminist storytelling (with regular callouts of sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and more). The major end-of-season plot twists generally don’t …
Movie Review: Doctor Strange (2016)
Movie #7 of 2017: Doctor Strange (2016) I’m still happy with my decision to wait until Doctor Strange was on Netflix to watch it (so as to hurt box office returns in protest of the casting). But having now finally seen the thing, I will freely admit that it was a pretty good movie in …
Book Review: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Book #120 of 2017: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner Mixed feelings on this one. I appreciate the overall message that economic principles can be applied to subjects far afield from the traditional bounds of the discipline, but the examples included in this …
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 